Yggdrasil
by z00r0pa
Summary: The battle is over, damage expenses will be covered by Stark, a story will be drummed up by S.H.I.E.L.D for the press and it's all just a routine operation. Except when it goes badly wrong. / character death / oneshot /


"_Loki! Stand down!" Thor's voice quite literally thunders over the din of battle, leaving a path of silence in its wake. Loki leaps from rooftop to rooftop, swinging from fire escape railings and scrambling up old, unused drainpipes that are slick with melting ice, sheer Jotun strength powering his movements._

_And he does not stop._

_Thor calls again, and again._

_But Loki does not stop until he turns into a mere shadow and disappears into the darkness that is New York's labyrinth of back streets and alleyways, cast into shadow by the lack of electricity surging through the city's powerlines._

_Thor does not run after him._

_The battle is over, damage expenses will be covered by Stark, a story will be drummed up by S.H.I.E.L.D for the press and it's all just a routine operation – Thor knows this – but why does this feel so different? _

_There's something wrong, the air is thick with something Thor recognizes as magicks and mischief. _

_It's a very familiar feeling, he thinks._

_But what isn't so familiar is the hulking form of a dead Chitauri 'Space-Whale', as they liked to call them, stung by the fatal bite of what Thor knew to be Loki's magic._

That was the first time Loki fought alongside them, for reasons that they would never learn.

**oOOOo**

"_Hey, Loki, you got a huge-ass Frosty at 12 o'clock – now would be a good time for your freaky voodoo." Tony's metallic voice rattles through the comm. link and into Loki's ear. The god stabs his spear into the side of a simple Jotun guard that's buzzing around him like an irritating fruit fly, before turning to the giant that Stark just pointed out._

Aha_, he grins, _an interesting opponent at last.

_He strikes, fast and accurate and deadly like a snake darts for its prey. But it's not working. The Jotun is more advanced than Loki gives it credit for, as it continues to dodge every single blow and every counter-attack and every spell that Loki utters. _

_Loki feels his movements growing sluggish, his muscles beginning to break down with fatigue. It's probably one of the few times he can say he's might be ever so slightly glad to see Mjolnir fly past in a blur of grey and brown._

_He and Thor fight for a long time. _

_The Jotun is nigh on unbeatable, Mjolnir barely makes a dent and Loki's own magic is causing more harm to himself than the giant. It's not only that, though. The Jotun is cunning, and quick, and entirely unlike his kin._

_Loki is exhausted and running on pure adrenalin, and he's pretty sure Thor is too. _

_And he thinks that might be why Thor slips up._

_It's all over in seconds. Thor drops Mjolnir and stumbles across the slick ice cast by the Jotun. It's barely enough time for Thor to register what happened before the Jotun has plunged an ice spear straight through his chest. Thor doesn't even make a sound._

_Loki thinks that's the worst part. It's not watching Thor sink to the ground, or hearing the beating of his heart slowing, or watching the crimson pool around him. It's that silence. _

_But the problem was that the silence became so loud, Loki didn't hear the Jotun behind him. And then he felt ice. And then nothing._

And the last time.

**oOOOo**

_They never thought they'd see two gods - two teammates - fall at the hands of a creature that they'd fought so many times before. It seemed such a trivial, dishonorable way for death to greet them._

_There were a lot of things to do that day. The battle was over, damage expenses were to be covered by Stark, a story would be drummed up by S.H.I.E.L.D for the press and it would all just be a routine operation. _

_But no-one forgets gods that quickly. Least of all Midgard's Avengers. And it was Tony who thought of Yggdrasil._

**oOOOo**

And so they're going to plant a tree, and call it Yggdrasil, and some nights, Steve will go and sit under it and draw the stars like he used to do on the roof of Stark Tower, only this time, there was no blonde Norse god rambling on about his own stars, no friendly arm on the shoulder (that sometimes caused Steve to slip and make an unwanted pencil mark, but that was okay) and no more fascinating stories of Asgard that seemed to roll off the god's tongue as words he'd spoken a thousand times before. Steve suspected he had.

He'll remember the nights when they'd be on a S.H.I.E.L.D sanctioned mission somewhere hostile – the deserts of the Middle-East, maybe - and they felt like they'd reached a dead end, but that didn't matter because Loki was showing them the stars of Asgard and Yggdrasil, how vibrant they were in comparison to Midgard's own, and he, like Thor, would tell tales of the stars. In a weird, sad way, it gave them some comfort to know that nothing would deal them such a bad hand as life had done to Loki – his stories were the darker side of Yggdrasil, and they were _dark._ Steve recalled Tony having a distant kind of _fondness_ of them.

Tony will visit the tree sometimes, say a few words and call himself insane for talking to a tree, but he wishes that Loki would be happy now, y'know? No more self-hatred, no more nights locked alone in the prison of his mind, no more.. no more loneliness. He had people to _be_ with, to be as _Loki_ was, Tony thought, and they called him _friend_ despite it all. And Thor.. well Thor was Thor. He fought with the might that you'd expect of a god, and could drink Tony under the table on most days. He'd sing songs of Valhalla after, and sometimes managed to rope Loki in too after getting several pints of mead down the little trickster. Truth be told, Tony misses them. A lot. He'll never admit it. Loki showed him that he wasn't alone in feeling the guilt for the deaths of thousands.

Bruce doesn't visit often, but when he does, he always brings something. One day, he hangs a little glowing atom structure that he and Tony made for fun the other night, and when Steve asks why, Bruce says it reminds him of Loki because Loki always loved science, even if he didn't grasp it at first. He tried to work with Bruce sometimes, but in the end he just got so confused that he almost managed to single-handedly blow up the lab, so Bruce simply sat him down and Loki listened instead, eager to learn. His desire for knowledge made Bruce eager to explain, and explain he did. Thor would join in sometimes, but Bruce always knew he couldn't get his head around it, no matter how hard he tried.

Even Natasha misses him. Loki. Loki was the guy who she could rant to in an uncharacteristic slip of emotions and he would give her his sarcastic comments as he always did, but she knew he listened, and Loki wouldn't tell a soul. Nat was fond of Thor too, his 'Lady Natasha' greeting was endearing, and he was a sweetheart to her. Bruce often found Thor running around after the little spider, and it was on the days when she managed to rope Loki in too that the doctor was unable to hide a grin of amusement at the sight.

And Clint. Clint never got to call Loki a friend, but there were 4 times when Loki saved Clint and one time Clint saved Loki, so they called it even after that. He never associated much with Thor either, he never really knew why. Clint goes mostly because Natasha goes, and there's nothing much else he can say.

Fury knows about Yggdrasil too, but he doesn't go there. He never does. Instead, he issues a huge protection license on it courtesy of the US government, and he keeps it standing. Although, there was that one time when he asked Coulson to pass on his thanks to Thor and Loki – Coulson went down with a little S.H.I.E.L.D logo, mainly as a joke. Coulson could put the fact that Loki had almost killed him aside (not to mention it had gained him his wife and family. He could at least thank Loki for that).

Fury said that they did a lot. Loki could call himself a… an _honorary_ Avenger, he thinks with a rueful smirk. Fury knew, somewhere deep down, that Loki could never really do that. Not quite. His own pride was far too great to suffer such a blow, and that made the grim director almost smile.

After a few years, it's Tony who returns with bleary eyed little boy who looks barely older than two, maybe, with faint freckles dashed across his nose and the messy, birds-nest brown hair as well as the simple cheekiness radiating from his tiny smirk that tells you it's got to be Stark's kid.

"Bane, " he says to the boy, catching the toddler's attention and glancing to Yggdrasil, "you'd like them, Bane. Loki especially. He left chaos everywhere he went, kind of like you." he continues, lips quirking in a smile. Bane reached out suddenly, his tiny fingers brushing the bark of the tree, with his father's arc reactor light spilling out and casting a warm glow on the trunk.

"Yeah. And I'm damn sure they'd love you too. Hell, I'd be making them babysit so me and your mom can actually go out sometimes." Tony smiles fondly, and he swears he saw a faint flicker of light that was definitely not his arc reactor, reach out from the tree and wrap around Bane's wrist, but it was gone in a split-second.

And then on one Christmas Eve, Steve puts some fairy lights on the branches.

"Please forgive me for mocking you gods, but.. it's Christmas." he says, a childlike wonder lit up his face as the lights illuminated, "I remember our first Christmas together. Loki almost destroying the turkey in some kind of strange Norse sacrificial fashion, Tony stuck on the top of the tree because who the hell buys a 10 foot Christmas tree? Only Tony, and then Clint's fiasco with the shrimp cocktail. It was sure a revelation for you guys-" he laughs, and then sighs, cutting himself off and simply resorting to patting the trunk twice in an awkward show of emotion.

"Steve? What are you doi-" Steve turns at Natasha's familiar Russian-lilted voice, and turns a light shade of pink.

"Oh, _Steve_." Natasha's lips form a full-on grin as she approaches, Clint huddled in his coat besides her. "This is beautiful. Why did we never think of this before?"

"I just figured.. I don't know, Nat. Tony and Pep were wrapping up Bane's presents, and Bruce was asleep and I just.. I was thinking. About them." Steve looks back to the tree, blush fading as Natasha comes up next to him.

"That's.. that's kinda nice, man." Clint murmurs from somewhere in the depths of his purple scarf.

"Thanks, Clint." Steve grins lopsidedly, his gaze not leaving the tree. Two pairs of feet crunching on the snow alert the trio to new arrivals, and sure enough, a tired looking Bruce and an overexcited looking Tony stand there, gazing upon the tree in wonder.

"Heard you leave. You didn't come back for ages and you kind of have a bad track record with this weather." Bruce attempts a little light humour, and he breathes a sigh of relief when Steve laughs.

"Wow." Tony grins, a tiny laugh of surprise escaping him as he moves closer to it, inspecting the fall of the multicoloured light upon the bark in an obvious attempt to look a little less sappy.

"Steve? They'd love this. Well, Thor would," Bruce grins as he huddles further into his coat, moving over to stand besides the soldier, "Loki would give you a look of disgust, call you a sentimental fool and disappear to whatever plot he's working on in a blackout room somewhere."

"But he'd _secretly_ love it." Tony adds, patting the bark. Somewhere in the distance, a clock bell rings out, signaling the turn of midnight.

"Yeah. Happy Christmas, guys." Steve says, laughing at Tony's attention turning to rapidly shaking the snow off the branches and covering Bruce in the process.

Steve receives a few happy Christmases and general murmurs of agreement before turning to retrace his tracks back to the Tower, glad of the appreciation for the lights which, he won't fail to mention, took _ages_ to put up.


End file.
